The Sunday Mail
Milton Kamwendo
Hunting for Greatness
No one is sitting waiting for you to wake up, catch up or show up. Playing lazy games with excuses will not take you anywhere. Whatever your excuse, do not exalt it! Regardless of how appropriate, or convenient your excuses could be, do not prepare to launch them into orbit.
Dump your excuses at your earliest opportunity because excuses never lead you anywhere worth going.
Let those who doubt you engage in this practice while you are busy doing. Let those that laugh, laugh on while you charge forward with determined action. Let those who doubt your age, explain your circumstances, pity your situation, comment on your sanity remain adding their books, while you charge forward.
Whatever your excuse, if you look closely enough, there is someone who had an opportunity to use the same excuse and do nothing yet defied the odds. Do not build a business case to explain your excuse. Excuses do not require a business model canvas or an elaborate strategic plan. Stop complicating matters or veiling your excuses in verbiage.
You cure excuses with action. Take relentless action and your excuses will pail is attractiveness. Execution exorcises excuses. Whenever you blame anyone for being where you are, you give up the power to change and chop your own feet. You know what to do. Just do it and stop explaining the why-not, why-not-now, why-not-me!
Nothing will change much so long as you have logical explanation to justify being where you are. Use your mind to create solutions and not to invent more excuses.
Use your brain instead of brimming with excuses. Who cares if people understand your excuses? No excuse is good enough to take you forward and help you unleash your greatness. If anything is to be it is up to you. You have to take extreme ownership. It starts by adopting a new mantra: no more excuses!
On January 12, 2004 he decided that enough was enough. He would not waste one more year in ignorance. He was 84 at the time.
A grandfather who had not gone to school before. He could have blamed his parents, but they were long dead. He could have blamed his government, but then the Government had issued a policy of free primary education for all.
He could have blamed the little ones for laughing. He was determined. Excuses are all those obstacles that you use in your mind to block the road to your greatness.
If you can still be stopped you have not yet decided. Mr Kimani Ng’ang’a Maruge, a Kenya national enrolled at a local primary school in Eldoret to start his learning journey, breaking new ground and becoming the oldest person to start school.
National disturbances in his country did not deter him from his journey. He had to move to Kariobangi, a ghetto in Nairobi, after three years to continue his education. Do not let any adversity stop or overwhelm you. New rays shine as you move forward.
One year into school, opportunity located Maruge, when he was invited to New York City to speak to a United Nations session on the importance of free primary education. He had never been on a plane and little did he know that his singular decision would catapult him to new places. You will never go anywhere while you are standing still, manufacturing excuses.
In class he struggles with maths, mastering the nuances of reading, spelling and at times getting help from his classmates.
During break time, he enthrals his classmates with stories from his days as a Mau Mau fighter in the Kenya independence movement of the 1950s. Why kills yourself at such an old age? Maruge was inspired by dreams: to read the Bible on his own, to be able to read, to be a doctor and saw himself living long and getting to 300 years. Regardless of how wild your dream, give them a chance through action.
Although Mr Maruge passed on in 2009, he left a can-do-it legacy. You also can be an inspiration if you dump your excuses and do the needful.
Your life will shift when you stop blaming others for your misery and being angry with people, things, institutions and life. No one owes you anything. Get up and start doing work that matters.
Excuse drama
Drama without results will not take you anywhere. Stop dramatising your miseries and trying to court sympathy and attention.
Life is not waiting to be at your service and to bow to your convenience. If you profile your excuses and position yourself as a victim you may get some sympathy, here and there. You may feel good, receive pressure and think you did something meaningful. Shame on you!
Get tired of using the same old excuses for so long and seeing no results. Truly innovate, and do not try to create more excuses.
Excuses do not respect age and they thrive when they are shamelessly dramatised and overused. Get tired of hearing yourself using the same excuse. Get tired of giving excuses and give results. There are no sufficient excuse resources in the book that will make you into a champion.
Until you give up your excuses you are not ready to create a new life. Put your ego at the back seat and let your purpose and passion lead the way.
Excuse disease
Excuses are not just a mere disease. They are an epidemic. Look carefully at your life and list your top five excuses. Look at these carefully and ask yourself a few questions: For how long have I had this excuse?
Do I know someone also who is using this excuse well? Which of the excuses is my favourite? What is the excuse doing to me? Knock the legs off your excuses.
Do not look for data to validate your excuses. Do not look for numbers to comfort you in mediocrity. Defy your excuses.
Someone has to put an end to this epidemic called excuses. It is you, most likely. The disease of excuses is called, “Excusitis.”
It is the failure disease. Stop looking for other people who share your excuses and start looking for those who rebelled against their excuses and created a life that they imagined. You cannot afford to live below your potential. You do not have the luxury to be comfortable with being anything less than you dream.
If you have to dream then, throw away your excuses and dream big and bold. This life is not for the timid who take hesitant half-hearted actions. Live your dreams out loud and do great things.
Excuse distance
The distance between where you are and where you plan to be can be measured by the number of excuses that you have for not being there. Defy your excuses and knock each of them out of the way.
There is no excuse that you have that is not common to man. Instead of investing more excuses invest more in execution. It is the doer that matter not the one who has excuses. Major on doing and not explaining why it was not done.
Excuse density
The density of your excuses represents the number of excuses that you have per given project or assignment. Defy the density of your excuses by taking action.
Do not wait for everything to become perfect in order for you move into action. You have to start engaging and doing something. Start where you are with what you have. You action cue signals to the world that you are ready
Drama without results will not take you anywhere. Stop dramatising your miseries and trying to court sympathy and attention. Life is not waiting to be at your service and to bow to your convenience.
If you profile your excuses and position yourself as a victim you may get some sympathy, here and there.
for great things. Be known for taking action and not for manufacturing excuses.
Excuse duration
For how long are you going to keep and nurse an excuse. Instead of using age, disease and time as an excuse choose to take action and do what must be done.
Like Mr Maruge, find your area of focus and work. On self-improvement. Take the actions that are meaningful to you. Focus on your energies on doing and on things that matter. Eject your excuses! Their duration is over.
Committed to your greatness.
Milton Kamwendo is a leading international transformational and motivational speaker, author, and executive coach. He can be reached at: [email protected] and Twitter: @MiltonKamwendo or WhatsApp at: 0772422634. His website is: www.miltonkamwendo.com
